Bangkok--Dec 20--Siam PR. Consultant
Moong Pattana Marketing reveals sales of Pigeon products in 2004 exceeds 200 million baht
Company to maintain leadership in mother care and baby accessories markets
Sales of Pigeon products continue to grow 10% on average annually to lead the market with 54% market share of the premium and standard markets. The company now prepares strategies to bolster its leadership in mother care and baby accessories products through new marketing activities, as sales growth has been set at 15%.
Sumets Lersumitkul, Chairman and CEO of Moong Pattana Marketing Co., Ltd., disclosed that the current market for mother care and baby accessories continued to ride a positive trend with total market value of 520 million baht, which could be broken down into 43% premium market, 25% standard market and 32% economy market. “The overall market remain satisfactory, despite lower growth rate when compared with that of last year. The key factor now becomes the changing lifestyle of the mothers. They now pay more attention to raising the babies by themselves and knowledge and details of products are being used in considering a product, instead of pricing alone. Products selected must help promote child development and provide comfort and convenience in terms of caring of a baby. This is why the products within the premium segment have grown 15% to over 220 million baht in value, while the growth in the standard and economy segments remained unchanged at 132 million baht and dipped 14% to 167 million baht respectively,” he said.
At present, each manufacturer and distributor is increasing attention in product development in order to provide good product quality and new products constantly to the market. “Each operator is finding a niche market of their won. With that Pigeon products simply enjoy competitive advantages as consumers have put their trust in the products to make it market leader for over 30 years. Mother care products and baby accessories are expected to enjoy the biggest sales growth,” he explained.
“The number of new-born babies has declined each year but that does not affect the sales of the company since modern mothers are allocating more spending to the caring of their babies. What they need is something that helps child improvement, while providing excellent comfort and convenience, which coincide with Pigeon’s marketing direction and practices,” he said.
“For the year, the sales of each product category have been expected to grow above 10%, which actually contributed to 15% growth overall or 190 million baht. The biggest sellers include nipples and bottles, whose sales turnover totaled 125 million baht, followed by mother care products, with sales of 45 million baht, and imported products with sales of 20 million baht,” Methin Lersumitkul Group Product Manager of Moong Pattana Marketing disclosed.
Mother care products enjoy the largest growth of 55%, up from 29 million baht to 45 million baht. Biggest contributors to this product category include baby wipes and breast pads with the former posting significant growth and expanded customer base — more mothers are using the products themselves. The company also expanded into the teen market with free product sampling of already 200,000 items. Breast pads on the other hand jumped over 30% in sales.
As for next year, the company is looking at seeing sales grow 15% with mother care products expected to post the highest growth. With regard to the marketing plan, Methin said his strategy would focus on creating a difference for the products, highlighting the quality as well as product development with a beckoning message of products developed especially for Asians. “Enhancing corporate branding for Pigeon through marketing and social activities will be carried out along side, while educating the target consumers through business alliances. The company will concentrate on building business alliances whose understanding of the industry is extensive. Their marketing direction as well as target buyers must also be similar to ours,” he said, adding that the strategy to seek allies would begin in the second quarter of next year.
“Pigeon is a well-known brand from Japan and has been the best selling brand for several years. We have tried to make our customers see this especially the part on product innovation and development. Pigeon is also trying to provide the mothers with information and know how on how to care for children apart from other product supports. Quality is being developed in order to cater to the current and future needs of target customers,” he concluded.
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